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Due to rising home prices and industry labor shortage, homeowners are becoming increasingly more likely to invest in their property via a DIY renovation. In fact, a recent Home Depot survey of 1,000 new homeowners found that more than 57 percent of Americans thought they could remodel an entire room completely by themselves. This presents a huge opportunity for relevant brands to ramp up their marketing to get DIY shoppers in the door.

As we head into Father’s Day this weekend (and with the NRF reporting nearly 20% of shoppers are planning to buy home improvement supplies as gifts), we looked into shopper activity at Home Depot and Lowe’s to see what insights we could glean around who is shopping at these locations as well as what messaging and what timing would best resonate for them.

Marketers targeting Lowes and Home Depot shoppers may have assumed that Mondays or weekends were the best time and men were the best targets but location data shows that’s just not the case. We found that the majority of foot traffic around these stores was attributed to female shoppers! This means that these brands would probably be better served to target women rather than the stereotypical home improvement demographic of men. This with the fact that women are responsible for the vast majority (70%) of household financials, makes women the obvious choice for targeting. With location data, marketers can get rid of assumptions and allocate their spend to target the audience that will give them the best return possible.

Additionally, our data found that for marketers looking to reach the Lowe’s shopper, it would be wise for them to think about offering a sale on Friday, when most consumers visit the store. Perhaps they are prepping for their weekend DIYs and would value content or offers related to their project. The study also showed that Home Depot shoppers were more likely to make return trips, be interested in art content and shop on Tuesdays. For marketers, having this information allows them to optimize messaging and timing to serve content when it will be best received. This includes serving content while in store. Our upcoming research found that there is a big opportunity to serve ads to consumers while they are perusing the aisles. With 36% of in-store shoppers price comparing while they browse, 30% flicking through social networks and almost a quarter multi-tasking by checking news and weather via mobile apps, consumers are likely to see ads presented to them before they purchase the items in their carts.

Marketers should be leveraging location insights to understand how best to use their marketing dollars to bring bodies (and wallets) in the door and convert that traffic into sales.

Mike Buttigieg

Senior Sales Director | Blis
Michael Buttigieg is Senior Sales Director at Blis, the global pioneer in location data. Having been at Blis since 2013, Buttigieg moved out to New York in 2016 to help establish Blis’ New York office where he specialises in the sales of Blis’ proprietary technology and platform.